Sydney Film Festival, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) announce that David Stratton will present a program of 10 essential films directed by Martin Scorsese.

The curated films will screen as the retrospective program during the 63rd Sydney Film Festival (8-19 June) and in Melbourne at ACMI (27 May-12 June) and at the NFSA in Canberra (1–23 July) after Sydney Film Festival’s screenings.

The retrospective program of 10 specially imported 35mm prints, curated by David Stratton, entitled Essential Scorsese: Selected by David Stratton, features works by one of the most influential directors of our time.

David Stratton says: “Scorsese talks in a rapid-fire style as though he doesn’t have enough time to describe everything he knows. He’s like a character in a 1930s movie. His films are passionate too. His best are explosive in their impact, crammed with information and detail. On the one hand, his Catholic upbringing leads him to tackle religious subjects (The Last Temptation of Christ, Kundun) while the Saturday matinee kid in him revels in the trashy gore of his gangster films.”

The 10 films in the program are:

Mean Streets (1973)
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974)
Taxi Driver (1976)
New York, New York (1977)
Raging Bull (1980)
The King Of Comedy (1982)
Goodfellas (1990)
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Casino (1995)
The Aviator (2004)
Tickets for Sydney Film Festival screenings are now on sale – head over to the festival website for more information.